The Cutprice Guignol

Guts, glory – and what might be Hell Motel’s best episode so far.

This week’s episode, Guts and Glory, is split across two timelines – one in the present, as Blake holds the rest of the survivors hostage at gunpoint, and one in the past on the night of the frat part massacre Blake survived several years earlier. It’s a character deep-dive I’ve been really looking forward to, though, after Adriana’s didn’t land for me last week, I have to admit I had my doubts.

But I didn’t need to, because Guts and Glory is a genuinely brilliant forty minutes of television. In the midst of it is Atticus Mitchell as Blake, and God, is this just a fantastic performance. It put me in mind of Naomi Scott from Smile 2 – the kind of horror role that might not call for something intense on the surface, but that benefits so much from the depth those actors bring to it. I thought Mitchell demolished this episode, perhaps more than any other standalone character story we’ve had this season, increasingly unhinged and unpredictable as his past and present begin to clamber on top of each other.

I’ll start with the past, since it’s probably my favourite thing about this episode: Hell Motel is part of the Slasher family, and if you needed convincing, they fit a whole season of Slasher into a B-plot just for this episode as Blake survives the massacre. Given that we know Blake makes it out of the attack, it could have suffered from predictability, but instead it shifts the question to how he escapes, and, more specifically, what he has to do to ensure it. This subplot features some gnarly kills and tense moments, but what it reveals about Blake informs his story in the present, too.

As Blake waves a gun around while throwing accusations at the survivors (coincidentally what you can expect if you ever come to mine for a dinner party), Hell Motel narrows its focus to the remaining cast to great effect. Everyone who’s still standing (well, sitting for the most part this week, but you get what I mean) is a fascinating character in their own right, and their interactions with Blake as they try to deflect his accusations are revealing, especially as we move into the final act of this story. Not to mention the inherent comedic value of Floyd and Shirley protesting their homespun innocent charm while actually being, you know, serial killers.

Beyond just the quality of the stories being told here, though, the production of this episode was a real standout for me. Adam McDonald knows his way around a stalk-and-slash sequence, so all of the scenes in the frat house have a real propulsive quality to them, the camera swooping in a panic from room to room. The sound design, with Blake’s memories increasingly overlapping with the present day, really serves the story too, and I love to see this show use everything in its arsenal to tell a really effective and compelling story.

Guts and Glory is the standout from this season so far – a sharp, well-constructed pair of narratives that compliment each other perfectly. If this is what we’ve got to look forward to from the rest of the season, I’m looking forward to seeing where Hell Motel takes us in these final episodes.

If you’d like to deep-dive Slasher with me again to compare against Hell Motel, check out my series here! If you’d like to support my blog and get access to exclusive content, please consider supporting me on Patreon, or if you’re interested in my fiction work, check out my short horror story collection!

(header image via Paragon Jackets)